Fiona Apple: The Idler

news 4 the wichitan Wednesday — December 5, 2012 thewichitan.com — your campus / your news Texas petition to secede rises to 117,934 signatures

MAKAYLA KINNEY sta ff writer

Texas attempted to secede from the United States in 1869 but lost to the Supreme Court decision of Texas v. White. Now, 143 years later, Texas is attempting again with an online petition.

“There is a misnomer that the original treaty with the United States would allow Texas to secede, but this was repealed several years after joining the union,” Richard Hardcastle, Texas state representative district 68, said.

An online petition urging the Obama administration to allow Texas to secede from the union has gathered 117,934 signatures since it was created Nov. 9.

An unidentified person, “Micah H.,” from Arlington, Texas, formed the petition on the White House website pleading for the Obama administration to “peacefully grant the State of Texas to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own new government.”

Petitions must receive 25,000 signatures before being formally recognized by the president. All 50 states have petitioned to secede from the union.

Zach Zoet, a senior in biology, said he believes the whole idea of separating ourselves from the union is not viable.

“There would be a vast expenditure of tax payer money to form a new government and they would have to set up international trade. It’s a lot of people rebelling with no conducive or articulated point,” Zoet said.

With the passing presidential election, Zoet said this is the aftermath of the election not resulting in the presidency of their preferred candidate. Like the Tea Party and other rebellious organizations, Zoet said he believes this is history repeating itself and the peoples’ way of revolting against the government.

“It’s flawed in numerous ways.

PROFS from pg. 1

Every verifiable metric shows we’re growing and improving,” Zoet said.

Chair of the Political Science department Steve Garrison said Texas could not leave the United States without a fight. Since Texas does not have its own form of military, the battle would be over quickly.

“It’s going to take a war for Texas to leave the United States. I don’t think Texas could defeat the United States in a war without a military or industrial capacity,” Garrison said.

Military bases placed in Texas would be removed seeing as they are federally funded. This would not only affect Texas as a whole but also Wichita Falls specifically. Sheppard Air Force Base employs 46 percent of the population in this area.

Garrison also explained interstates, port capacities, health care and education would be greatly affected without the federal money flow. Without federal loans, many college students would not have the money to obtain a higher education.

“I don’t know how Texas would be able to provide services as an independent country. Everybody thinks it’s this idea that Texas gets to walk away and keep all the federal property. The federal government isn’t going to do that,” Garrison said.

With all 50 states petitioning to secede, there has been skepticism over the turnout of the election. Garrison said he believes the petitions are a gimmick to draw attention to the states and the federal government is not concerned with the requests.

“There’s always people upset with whoever the president is or whatever the laws are. The bigger question is whether or not what they’re doing is considered sedition under federal laws. It may send a signal that the federal government may start prosecuting people before it turns into a situation where there is war,” Garrison said.

Texas State Representative for district 69 James Frank, said he does not support the efforts to secede from the union.

“While I appreciate the sentiment of those who think the federal government has overreached its powers, I in no way support any efforts to secede from the union. I am not sure speculating on the impact of secession is beneficial, as I don’t believe the effort has any merit,” Frank said.

Texas State Representative for district 68 Richard Hardcastle said he also opposes the petition to secede. Hardcastle said the plea to withdraw from the union is a “feel-good deal” for the people.

“It’s just a feel-good deal for the people circulating the petition in letting the federal government know how they feel about what is going on with our government,” Hardcastle said. In regards to the economy in Texas if it actually seceded, Hardcastle said the state could not afford to lose federal funding. Without this assistance, state schools would lose all capital provided from the government.

“State school would lose all federal money which is only minimal at present. As of now, Texas itself is the 12th or 13th largest economy in the world, but financially we still could not afford to lose the federal assistance,” Hardcastle said.

Even with Texas having high ranking economy on a worldwide basis and being the second largest state in the country, Texas would not be able to become its own nation.

According to Hardcastle, the original treaty signed by the United States has been repealed stripping Texas of the right to secede from the union.

FIGHT from pg. 1

been directly correlated with student comments and suggestions. “Is my class boring? I’ll change that too,” he said. “If they more lectures, a change of books, or anything else, I do my best to make those changes so that my students are receiving the best of my ability as an instructor.” Rankin said he also reads every comment from students about their instructors.

He mainly looks for patterns of consistency, he said.

“I wish there were some way to get students more serious about evaluations,” he said.

When Rankin receives a less-than-stellar review of an instructor in his department, he immediately informs him or her of the changes they need to make.

In fact, at Winthrop University, a state school in South Carolina, where Rankin served twice as chair of his department, students gave poor reviews of a teacher saying her attitude was too negative in the classroom.

“She had an extremely thick Eastern European accent which was initially intimidating to students,” he said. “Her teaching methods were comparable to how one might teach in the Soviet Union—the teacher is the boss, and they are very demanding.”

According to Rankin, such behavior is never in the students’ best interest, so he dealt with the individual accordingly to better assimilate her into teaching in the American method.

“Pattern is the key word— with concerns or praise,” he continued. “These are the things I will put in their reports.”

The system is far from perfect, however. Rankin pointed out in some cases, he can tell when students have given glowing reviews of their professors simply because the class was easy. He said he came to that conclusion in seeing that a majority of the students have received A’s when the course load should have been much more challenging.

“In those instances,” Rankin said, “The comment sections will read something like ‘he is great fun,’ but offer no other substance about the instructor.”

According to both Rankin and Little, evaluations at their previous institutions were essentially identical to those conducted at MSU.

Nathan Jun, philosophy professor and four-year-member of the Faculty Senate, had a different view of student evaluations in that, essentially, they are a huge waste of time for everyone involved.

“Social scientific research surrounding course evaluations are unanimous,” he said. “They don’t provide any useful information for the instructor being evaluated, and they don’t really tell us anything. Very rarely will you get a nuanced, thoughtful response.”

Jun said one of the only things they might affect is an instructor’s ability to receive tenure in the future. At the same time, he questions the students’ credibility in evaluating a professor, mainly because they have no idea what specific duties are required of a particular professor.

“Why assume that students are in a position to evaluate us?” he continued. “They might have assumptions, but, for the most part, they have no idea what my job entails.”

Jun said a couple of years ago MSU tried implementing online student evaluations, which would make the data transfer to an instructor’s website much easier while at the same time saving money and time.

However, due to a lack of student response, the evaluations were returned back to the paper format.

“At some point, we will have to get the results online,” he said.

Getting students to take their own personal time to actually fill-out an online evaluation will be the trick, he said.

“The university might try to use incentives in order to encourage students to complete their online evaluations, but the burden should not rest solely on the instructor,” Jun explained.

Jun said he truly believes student evaluations are simply giant popularity contests based on whether or not students “like” an instructor and do not include anything specifically objective about that person’s teaching methods.

“Student evaluations really do make an impact on instructors,” Little said. “Faculty members go into teaching because of their love for their subject matter, and they want to share both the subject matter and their love for the subject matter with their students. When they find out, through student evaluations, that they are not doing that as well as they would like, that is a real downer for them. They take it very seriously, and they respond by trying hard to improve their teaching.” to do next time.

The fight stops whenever a member gets tired or whenever someone taps out. The safety coordinator makes sure everyone is practicing the fighting techniques safely and cannot leave whenever there is a challenge.

After three weeks of the groups’ existence, 18 members stayed officially in the club.

“It’s great that in just three weeks we get so many members that are interested in martial arts,” Muse said. “I tell any new members that this club is whatever they want to make of it whether it’s to find friends or to learn more about martial arts.”

Although the group is growing, there is one issue that can stump the growth.

Every Tuesday and Friday, the Martial Arts Club practices, but downtown at the Falls Town Fighters’ Club.

Thomas Williamson, vice president, said dues at the beginning of the club were $15, but increased it by $5 to pay for the space the group is renting.

Since $200 of the dues will go for paying rent, the club has to do more fundraisers.

He said even though the fighter’s club has everything the Martial Arts Club, including headgear, a boxing ring and thick mats, it does not let them represent MSU.

Muse said he wanted the Martial Arts Club to compete in tournaments and fight under MSU’s name, but without the insurance it is not possible.

If the Martial Arts Club decides to have a tournament, without the insurance, the group will be representing the Falls Town Fighters’ Club – not MSU.

The $200 members pay is not only for rent, but makes the club officially members and belongs to the Falls Town Fighters’ Club. Muse said sometimes even nonstudents want to join the club because they don’t know that it is an MSU organization.

“Getting insurance can be costly and I didn’t want to scare the new members without insurance with this commitment,” Muse said. “The club talked about getting insurance briefly, but it does not seem like an option financially for most of us.”

Kevin Bazner, assistant director for student development and orientation, said the Martial Arts Club was an existing group back in 1977 and a constitution was already written. The group was created once it had at least four members.

He said the Martial Arts Club wanted to be a club sport, but for a group to be considered a club sport, they would have to compete.

To compete under MSU’s name though, he said all the individuals would have to have insurance.

“The biggest things that we want an organization to do is practice, be respectful, and have insurance to keep them safe,” Bazner said.

He said the insurance could be from MSU or another provider, but if the organization does not have insurance, it cannot be a club sport.

Tiffany Kosse, medical office manager at Vinson Health Center, said most students can get insurance through MSU which is from Blue Cross Blue Shield. This medical plan covers a participant on campus, during vacation, and at home for a full 12-month period. She said insurance for a domestic student for a year, Aug. 1 through July 31, would approximately be $972. Even though MSU offer insurance for students Henderson said the insurance did prevent people from joining the team.

The Martial Arts Club wasn’t the only organization that was affected with this condition.

Although it is a club sport now, Bryce Henderson, president of the Ultimate club, said it started off as a group of people who had an interest in pursuing a more competitive form of ultimate than the weekly play in the Quad.

As more people became interested, the team was officially chartered as a part of the MSU Ultimate Club in 2010.

As a club sport, everyone who travels with the team to compete in tournaments must have a medical release, liability waiver, and proof of insurance form completed. As long as they have medical insurance, a student can try out for and become a part of the team.

For now, the Martial Arts Club will continue practicing at the Falls Town Fighters’ Club as a special interest group. Muse said even though he wanted the group initially to be a club sport, he said by making it a special interest group for the first year, it will help the group grow.

“I want the club to be at MSU and represent it,” Muse said, “but that will happen when we get enough money to pay for some insurance and that is not until a long time from now.”

Tolu Agunbiade on top of Sean Swarthout in dominant grappling position called a crucifix. Photo by HANWOOL LEE